500 Days (34 page)

While both were searching for the same skills, the Pentagon and the CIA each struck out on its own to put together interrogation programs.

The military did have one group that was, in a convoluted way, connected to interrogation. It was called the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, and it ran the SERE programs designed to train American fighters how to tolerate brutal questioning. The soldiers were subjected to abusive tactics that had been employed by the Chinese Communists decades before to obtain false confessions that could be used for propaganda purposes. The names of the methods were bland—sensory deprivation, sleep disturbance, slapping, waterboarding—but the impact on the well-being of those subjected to such treatment was extensively documented.

None of these methods were used in the Defense Department programs to produce interrogation results. No one at SERE cared whether the abuse worked; the sole concern was whether American military personnel were braced to withstand cruel questioning tactics.

That distinction was quickly lost in the rush to develop new interrogation programs. Officers responsible for the SERE programs began selling themselves to higher-ups as invaluable sources for training soldiers to question terrorists. All they had to do was reverse engineer the SERE program—rather than teaching American fighters to resist abusive interrogations, they would instead be instructed on how to use the Chinese tactics against terrorist detainees.

By December, the supposed benefit of transforming SERE experts into interrogation coaches was bouncing around the echo chamber of the Pentagon. Small, ad hoc programs to train interrogators using SERE tactics had already begun. Defense Department officials reached out to SERE instructors for
information about detainee “exploitation,” the first rumblings that those tactics could be widely adopted for the questioning of terrorists by the military.

Since the CIA didn’t have its own SERE schools, it decided to bring in an outside consultant. The agency hired Jim Mitchell, the recently retired air force SERE psychologist who bubbled excitedly about how the concept of learned helplessness that had been studied by Dr. Martin Seligman could be used in interrogations to break detainees. CIA officials asked Mitchell if he would be willing to analyze some al-Qaeda training manuals and see if he could devise an interrogation program based on what he read.

Mitchell agreed to give it a try and sought out a former SERE colleague, Dr. Bruce Jessen, for his input.

These two psychologists—who had never conducted an interrogation, who never performed research on the subject, who knew nothing about al-Qaeda—were now the point men for the CIA in structuring its interrogation program.

•  •  •  

It was called the “Manchester Manual,” and both the British and the American governments considered it one of the most important pieces of intelligence ever obtained about al-Qaeda’s operations and tactics.

The document had been discovered on a computer of a suspected terrorist, Anas al-Liby, following a police raid of his home in Manchester, England. Since the late 1980s, al-Liby had been a member of al-Jam’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah—the Libya Islamic Fighting Group—dedicated to the overthrow of Muammar al-Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator. In the mid-1990s, al-Liby fled Tripoli and gravitated toward al-Qaeda; the American government believed that he had played a role in the East African embassy bombings.

Al-Liby avoided arrest in Manchester, slipping away before the raid. But in his haste to escape, he had left behind his computer, a trove of records, and other evidence, including the manual.

The document—handwritten in Arabic—had been scanned into a digital file; the police found no evidence that it had been e-mailed to anyone, and it was not apparent how al-Liby had obtained it. It was shipped to law enforcement and intelligence agencies in both Britain and America, and officials were awed by the find. With this training manual, they felt sure that they now knew the step-by-step instructions provided by al-Qaeda to its members on topics ranging from the use of weapons to espionage to operations.

But what officials in both countries found most intriguing was what the
document called the seventeenth lesson, a section on how to resist the various interrogation tactics practiced by police and prosecutors. This was one of the main items that the CIA wanted Jim Mitchell to study in formulating a plan for questioning terrorists.

There was, however, a problem with building an interrogation program based in part around the Manchester Manual: Despite the assurances of British and American officials, it was not an al-Qaeda document at all.
3

It was, instead, a booklet written by at least two men a decade before, at a time when al-Qaeda was in tatters and bin Laden was living at home in Saudi Arabia. It espoused different goals, using different means, from al-Qaeda’s. While it did contain instructions on how to commit terrorist acts, much of that information was amateurish, particularly in the areas of training and weapons usage.

The manual—which does not mention al-Qaeda or bin Laden, or say anything negative about the United States or any Western country—is instead focused on methods for overthrowing a Middle Eastern government. Its contents deal with the specifics of that government’s modus operandi—identifying the agency that arrests suspects, summarizing the training of its officers and prosecutors, and even describing the different rooms where detainees are held. The details match only one country: Egypt.

The “resistance techniques” laid out in the document were almost laughingly naive. The manual described some of the most gruesome forms of torture being practiced in parts of the Middle East, including tearing out fingernails, burning skin with lit cigarettes and fire, beating victims with sticks and electric wire, and shocking their genitals with electrical current. And how were the terrorist trainees to fortify themselves against such torments? The manual advised memorizing prepared answers for questions, disobeying orders, taking heart in the likelihood that the torture would likely end more quickly if none of the questions were answered, and praying to Allah. At no point did it suggest that someone who is arrested should fabricate torture claims, as both American and British officials would later contend.

Once Mitchell and his colleague Bruce Jessen finished their review of the al-Qaeda training manuals, they wrote a paper infused with psychological jargon analyzing the terrorist group’s thinking and recommending that the Americans adopt the tactics used in SERE—including slaps, sleep deprivation, walling, and waterboarding—to wring information out of captured terrorists.

Mitchell assured CIA officials that the methods would strike fear into the hearts of terrorists comparable to that experienced by pilots of a plane about to smash into a building. The officials liked what they heard—tough, muscular techniques coated in the dispassionate lexicon of science.

But the recommendation by Mitchell and Jessen was counterintuitive—if the “resistance techniques” in the manual were intended to help a terrorist avoid confessing when being burned by fire, why would less abusive tactics, like waterboarding, succeed?

All of those flaws and questions escaped the attention of the two men and the American government as they hastened to develop a program for harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists. None of them realized that this aggressive—and unprecedented—American policy was being formulated by these unqualified psychologists based in part on an obscure, near-meaningless, and wildly misinterpreted document.

•  •  •  

Paul Wolfowitz liked Alcatraz. That, he argued, would be a good place to hold and interrogate al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees.

A group of Pentagon officials had gathered in Rumsfeld’s office to debate possible choices for detention centers. It was a Sunday afternoon, after Rumsfeld had just returned from church, a time when the group had agreed to once again kick around ideas.

The debate had been set off by Tommy Franks, who told Rumsfeld that he wanted the detainees out of his hair. So, it was left to the defense secretary and his team to decide where to put them.

“I think Alcatraz is a great choice,” Wolfowitz said. “In American eyes, it’s the symbol of where you put the worst of the worst.”

It wouldn’t work, Haynes replied. “It’s in a metropolitan area,” he said. “It would take months to refurbish, and it’s not DOD property.”

There were also legal questions to consider. There was sure to be litigation, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a case from Alcatraz would be heard, was the most liberal in the country.

Then perhaps, Wolfowitz said, the Aleutian Islands in the Pacific. That would have a good climate, which would help limit illness among detainees.

There were other possibilities. Colin Powell had been beating the bushes for ideas, calling allies to see which might be willing to provide a location for the prison. Douglas Feith, the undersecretary for policy, judged each new suggestion based on five factors—security, safety, logistical support, cost, and applicable law. The best options, the group concluded, would place the detainees out of the reach of American courts.

The list of options rapidly grew. Powell persuaded both Panama and Granada to help. South Korea, Diego Garcia, and Wake Island were other available choices. Then there was the possibility of loading detainees onto ships at sea.

But one alternative kept rising to the top. It was an American base on an island governed by military law. It was relatively close. The climate was warm. And the captured terrorists could not possibly escape.

After the analysis was wrapped up, the officials agreed: Detainees should be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

•  •  •  

Bush took his seat at the head of the table in the White House Situation Room, surrounded by the full war council and their staffs. Condoleezza Rice sat directly across from him.

“Mr. President, Don has been through this and recommends that we put the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” she said. “And we support that.”

Cheney spoke up. “Where do they come from, and how do you get them there?”

A chart was brought out listing those issues, and others. At the bottom of the chart for each topic were small diamonds.

“What’s that symbol?” Cheney asked.

“Each diamond is a decision point,” Rice said.

There was the question of what to do with captured Americans; Lindh was already in custody, being held on a naval vessel. The consensus was that citizens should be brought back into the United States, tried in civilian court, and—if convicted—sent to prison.

“What if a detainee is dangerous, but we can’t try them?” Bush asked.

One of the lawyers took that question. “If they are enemy combatants in a conflict, the rules of war allow us to hold them as long as the conflict continues.”

Bush and Cheney asked a few more questions. Then the president decided to accept his advisors’ recommendation.

•  •  •  

Guantanamo Bay, on the southeastern end of Cuba, was dubbed “Puerto Grande” by Columbus when he landed there in 1494. In the centuries since, the harbor emerged as a trophy sought by numerous combatants eager to take possession of its strategic location and natural beauty.

In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War in 1898, when American naval ships rode out a hurricane in Guantanamo Bay, Washington saw the harbor as a prize of great value. America had seized Cuba from Spain and, in 1903, worked out a deal with its newly installed government allowing the United States to lease Guantanamo Bay in perpetuity under an agreement that granted complete jurisdiction of the area. The military built a naval base there, covering forty-five miles of land and water.

By 2001, the Guantanamo naval station was America’s oldest, and the site of constant renovation. By December, the lead construction superintendent at the base had been working there for a year and a half. Late that month, he was overseeing a crew handling a project on the leeward side of the base when his department manager issued new instructions.

“I need you to close down your project,” the manager said. “We’re going to be starting a project to renovate and build another area.”

They were under orders to construct a detention center, the manager said, one that would hold some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. And this would be a rush job—they needed to have something ready by January 31, just over a month away. Neither man could have known the deadline would soon be moved up by a couple of weeks.

There were already about forty cells, remnants from the early 1990s, when the naval station was used to house Cuban and Haitian refugees. There was plenty of space for expansion, but Washington hadn’t spent enough time planning for the larger facility; no new supplies were available—no wood, no fencing, no concrete. The detention center for suspected terrorists would have to be built from scraps.

The supervisor ordered his crews to wander the island, gathering materials. They removed old chain-link fences, posts, whatever they could find. With that, they constructed frames for the cells. Showers were built using some of the same materials, with fencing on the sides and the top. There was nowhere to cover
up; whenever detainees showered, they would be visible to everyone, including female soldiers. There would be no hot water.

The workers would eventually have to build a real detention facility, but for now, this jerry-rigged version, soon to be dubbed Camp X-Ray, would have to do.

2
It has been frequently reported that this journey ended on November 11, but that is incorrect. Several al-Qaeda members who took part in the trip, as well as classified government records, reveal that the date is December 14. See Notes and Sources.

3
Even a casual reading of the Manchester Manual makes it clear that this document was written not for al-Qaeda, but for another group entirely. Two members of a Middle Eastern intelligence service confirmed that analysis, with one calling the idea that the manual was intended for al-Qaeda “absurd.” See Notes and Sources.